Overview
Southwold Primary School ensures the learning children experience in school incorporates the national curriculum and government initiatives. To find out more about the national curriculum, follow the link below:
Our Southwold Curriculum
#EveryoneALearner
At Southwold Primary School, our whole school community accepts whole heartedly these statements:
- The undeniable and obvious goal of any leader, teacher or teaching assistant is to improve outcomes for every pupil.
- Pupils, in any class, learn because of what they do-the activities they positively engage in, the tasks they complete, the problems they solve and the relationships they build - as well as how learning is modelled.
- In any class setting, pupil learning experiences and processes are equally the result of the teacher's/teaching assistant's actions and the children's behaviour and attitudes: in the form of lessons, instructional approaches, interactions, activities, assessments and planning.
- Therefore, pupil success is largely a result of positive, collaboration of the whole school community.
Curriculum Intent
At Southwold, we believe that our curriculum is driven by 6 key golden threads that provide a framework for learning and help us deepen the children's understanding of what is being taught. These threads are big, transferable ideas that have a real meaning and help children make sense of the world around them. These threads can be revisited within and across year groups so that children can build upon their existing knowledge.
Diversity & Inclusion
We want to develop a culture of equality and diversity so that everyone feels proud of their identity and can participate fully in school life. We encourage children to be inquisitive and be the best they can be. At Southwold, we enjoy reflecting and celebrating families' cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity in our school. This can be seen in our curriculum, the way lessons are adapted, wall displays and achievements of all learners. We want Southwold to be a safe learning environment for everyone.
Our children are taught to question prejudice and bullying and support others to reach their full potential.
Children learn about the concepts of democracy and power throughout the school where we model this through our Pupil Leadership Team.
Our sports premium ensures all children have access to after school clubs and a range of sporting activities.
Values
Our intention is to ensure each child becomes the best citizen they can be by embracing and developing a shared set of values to prepare them for life in an ever-changing, modern world. We actively promote British values (Democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect, and tolerance of different faiths) through everything we do at Southwold and actively challenge views contrary to this. We want our children to respect each other's well-being and have strategies to help themselves as well as others in need.
Language Rich
Our curriculum is planned to include high quality texts and experiences that expose children to a rich and varied vocabulary whilst providing opportunities to regularly use in meaningful ways. We incorporate a range of pedagogical approaches for language development such as collaborative learning, children leading learning, and reciprocal teaching.
Knowledge & Skill Based
We follow a knowledge rich approach to planning, teaching, and learning. We regularly check the knowledge that children have retained and encourage them to reflect upon this through a wide range of questioning, experiences, and activities to support and challenge children at all levels.
Active Lifelong Learners
Our aim is to develop children into lifelong learners who are reflective, inquisitive, resilient, and independent. We want children to actively participate in their learning to keep them motivated and embed meaningful experiences to support long term retention. We use growth mindset throughout, to develop their learning power.
Community Cohesion
Southwold School is enthusiastic about tapping into our communities near and far. We want to enhance our children's learning experiences to demonstrate how skills learnt in school and from others can be used in their future careers and everyday life. We strongly believe in immersing our children into a variety of cultures, religions and national or local events to appreciate, take responsibility and respect everyone's individuality. We want children to gain widespread knowledge and experiences that will benefit them and may even inspire them to take part in a future adventure!
We actively encourage parents and our wider community to take part in our events.
All children leave our school with a sense of belonging where they have the confidence and skills to make decisions, self-evaluate, make connections, and become good citizens.
Diversity and Inclusion Implementation
At Southwold, we provide a strong set of ACHIEVE values which we model, highlight and celebrate. We ensure each child is heard and challenge negative attitudes. We have a strong Pupil Leadership Team who ensure pupil voice is heard and acted upon. During lunchtimes we developed our Positive Playtimes which ensures that each child whether they enjoy less structured lunchtimes or yearn direction, it is provided through zoned areas which include learning and playing games, quiet space to read or sit, Lego and performance zones for children to be creative as well as mindfulness colouring in. We support children using zones of regulations so that children feel safe whatever they are feeling, it creates a common language, creates self-awareness and helps children to thrive.
The curriculum provides resources that explore different cultures and intentionally chosen stories with a variety of characters and experiences, so children have positive role models and opportunities to identify with them. This also helps pupils understand other people and cultures, so they have respect. We plan activities to celebrate diversity awareness days and invite a range of visitors into school.
Our school makes adaptations to support all children so that all children whether they additional needs and disabilities or not, gain equal access to our school clubs and enrichment experiences offered, such as a residential or school trip.
Values Implementation
As a school, our ethos is built around a foundation of core ACHIEVE values. These are the basis for the social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and moral development of our children. Our values are Ambition, Collaboration, Honesty, Inclusive, Environment, Valiance and Excellence.
These are used to teach our children to take care of themselves, each other and the world they live in. They are embedded through the curriculum to develop the whole child as well as:
- A programme of school assemblies which discuss our ACHIEVE values and how we demonstrate them
- Highlight and direct class teaching around our values
- Ensuring that values are taught implicitly through every aspect of the curriculum
- Staff modelling values through their own behaviour and celebrating them with our children
- Referring to our ACHIEVE values through the use of Recognition Boards within classrooms
Language Rich Implementation
In every subject, the key language and vocabulary needed by children to communicate their learning is identified on long-term planning, modelled and used by staff. Vocabulary is displayed on working walls to support learning and to scaffold responses from all children. Sentence stems are used across the curriculum to enhance children’s oracy and reasoning skills. High quality texts are used to provide a wealth of vocabulary, model sentence structure and to give context and engage children in their learning. Staff at Southwold are encouraged to be passionate about language and model effective use of vocabulary within every aspect of their teaching.
Knowledge and Skills Implementation
The National Curriculum is the base for deciding upon the knowledge and skills that the children will be taught in each year group and the progression of skills in place across all subject areas. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that, where possible, learning is relevant to our diverse school population as well as the wider community and is rooted in the unique, opportunities that our school delivers for all learners. Our thematic and book-based curriculum hooks children in, embracing cross curricular links, to enhance learning experiences and to give context to the knowledge acquired and skills taught.
These high-quality texts, visual stimuli and experiences are used to make the knowledge and skills being taught as accessible as possible. Where necessary, the curriculum is adapted to ensure that all learners are able to access learning from their own starting points yet remaining both ambitious and achievable.
Children are given regular opportunities to reflect on their learning and to share what they know. This might be in the form of a quiz, a presentation or a discussion during lesson time. During each academic year, parents and visitors are invited into the school for their child’s Learning Showcase, where their child share’s their learning journey and final outcomes through their knowledge, skills and vocabulary across the subject areas and enrichment opportunities.
Active Lifelong Learners Implementation
Our whole school curriculum engages and encourages children to extend their learning through thoughtfully planned and sequenced lessons. Children are encouraged to let their enquiring minds wonder across the different subject areas, by asking how and why questions, challenging their thinking further, having a thirst for new experiences and securing deeper knowledge and understanding. We cultivate a positive attitude to learning by being reflective, learning from our mistakes and providing supportive strategies that encourage children. At Southwold, we provide opportunities for our children to explore and investigate learning through the use of our indoor and outdoor classrooms and hands on experiences which support their deeper understanding, develop their curiosity and apply what they learn to different contexts. We teach the children to be resilient during their learning experience and to nurture a growth mindset, encouraging them to take ownership of their future.
Community Cohesion Implementation
Our curriculum embraces outside learning and opportunities to learn within our wider environment and community. We recognise every child as a unique individual and celebrate and welcome differences within our school and wider community. Community involvement is an essential part of our curriculum as we recognise local and cultural traditions, enabling the children to understand and respect the diverse world in which we live and linking again to the One Planet Principles of Equity and Community.
Our curriculum is engaging and vibrant and encourages children to extend their learning through thoughtfully planned and sequenced lessons. Wherever possible, our children explore learning through trips, visitors and hands-on experiences that allow them to deepen their understanding, develop their curiosity and apply what they learn to different contexts.
Curriculum Impact
We measure the impact of our curriculum through:
- Sampling children’s learning across the school to recognise progress and attainment and to celebrate success
- Pupil discussions with teachers, Curriculum Champions and Senior Leaders about their learning
- Regular pupil progress meetings with teachers, where high quality interaction and reflection supports next steps for all children, based upon the knowledge of the individual child
- Reflecting as a staff team on the standards achieved against the planned outcomes across the curriculum
- Celebrating learning at the end of each term, where children demonstrate what they know and what they are able to do more of
Long Term Plans
Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact Statements
Phonics
At Southwold Primary School we use the Little Wandle scheme for Phonics.
*In accordance with the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 section 71, parents have the right to withdraw their children from all or part of RE and acts of collective worship on religious grounds. Parents should make their wishes known to the Headteacher who will ensure that any pupils who are withdrawn are appropriately supervised while the act of collective worship / RE lesson takes place. Pupils can be withdrawn wholly or partly from acts of collective worship only by parents.
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